Cadillac Cimarron
9) Cadillac Cimarron. The worst rebadge in the history of cars. I drove one with Whorehouse Red vinyl/fabric seats. As American as apple pie, and it accelerated and handled like an apple pie too.
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all good choices, with maybe one exception (the prism). i know you hate “top 10 lists,” but the pontiac lemans from the ’80s should have gotten a mention, maybe in place of the prism. as i recall, this was a good and fairly popular car, being a corolla rebadge and all. it doesn’t seem to quite fit in with some of the inane models on your list.
I bet the Cavalier was a knock-out in Japan.
I’m going to have to disagree with the Prizm. Yeah, it’s a boring car, and yeah, it’s a blatant badge job, but between giving Toyota a factory in the US and giving Chevrolet a car that doesn’t suck, it’s hard to say it was a bad idea.
The Toyota Cavalier is hilarious, though.
Are you sure the LeMans was a Toyota? I had a ‘90 model and I remember seeing “Built by Daewoo” on the engine along with some other random parts. That just made me assume the entire car was a Daewoo.
Could we at least give honorable mention to the older Cavalier/Grand Am/Alero/Skyhawk/Achieva clusterfuck? Two cars being the same underneath is bad enough, but my god, five?!
Who remembers the Chevette and Pontiac 1000? Those were real gems huh?
The Pontiac LeMans (Lemons?) was a Daewoo. OK it was an Opel Kadette built by Daewoo (then also part of GM) before Daewoo went “independent” and then collapsed and then became part owned by GM (and GM’s Chinese partner SAIC) and (GM’s slave – whoops I mean partner, Suzuki).
My pal had one and it was such a death trap, he sold it at a loss to ensure the safety of his wife.
Ironically, years later, I bought a 2002 Daewoo Nubira (1/2 price – long story to do with giving a ‘99 Neon to our college age son and needing something to replace it with, while on a severe budget and wanting new). $7800. Got it in 2003. Realized we were taking a huge chance.
Interestingly, it was a far better car than the 1997 Chevrolet Cavalier and 1999 Dodge Neon we’d owned previously, as our commuter cars. More reliable, certainly. Looked kind of cheap inside, but the metal work and paint work were first class. Still is – has 80,000 plus miles on it (it’s being used by our 2nd son now).
I actually ADVISED my wife’s best friend to get a Chevrolet Prizm.
She needed a good, late model, used car to last a long time post-divorce, and only had so much money.
The used price on a Prizm was about 70% of what a Toyota Corolla was.
It’s a Toyota Corolla “in drag”. And it’s been almost totally, flawlessly reliable through and through.
Light-years better than the Chevrolet Malibu she had prior, which constantly broke and rusted faster than any other car I’d seen for 10-15 years.
yeah, the Pontiac Lemans was a daewoo, and seems somehow more deserving of being on this list than the Prizm. I mean, the Prizm probably helped GM a bit, and the LeMans/Daewoo undoubtedly was a poison pill, even for the General.
But I think the Routan is at least as bad as the worst on this list. What makes it even worse than that is the existence of the fabulous Microbus concept.
Toyota Cavalier??? Ha ha. I was unaware of that one. That must have given Toyota a black eye in the land of the rising sun.
didn’t mean to imply the lemans was a toyota. i was referring to the prism as built by toyota. the lemans was definitely a daewoo rebadged as a pontiac. considering the aveo and others, we’ve come a long way, baby.
btw, just wanted to add that the routan is probably the most disgraceful of the bunch, including the cimarron. what was VW thinking?
Uhh, where’s the Saab 600? You know, it was a Lancia Delta (of the 80’s variety) with “Saab” and “600″ badges that they marketed in Sweden. That went over well.
I also have to say the Prizm was great bargain. I know 2 guys who are still driving them past 250K. What about the Chevy ‘Nova’ that preceded the Prizm? I know it’s been about 20 years but wasn’t that a joint venture with Toyota? Hideous interior.
What about the Sterling 800? It was a rebadged Rover 800 which itself was a rebadged Honda Legend.
The Mitsubishi version of the Dodge Dakota is right up there, not so much because it’s bad, but simply for being a complete automotive non-entity. I have seen a grand total of one on the road…ever.
In Canada, their are the badge engineered Suzuki’s, the Optra and the Epica, which compete directly with the Aveo and the Cobalt. Because, you know, GM needed some more model lines…
The LeMans was a Daewoo, the Spectrum was the Isuzu GEO offering and yes, Toyota offered the PriZm. With a “Z”.
I blame Ford for the Cadillac Cimarron. After GM executives got a look at the Lincoln Versailles shit-box, they must have thought to themselves, “Nobody out shit-boxes GM!” Boy did they ever succeed. Compared to the Cimarron, the Versailles look like a top shelf European product.
Johnsonc: The “Chevy Nova” of the mid-1980s is the Geo Prizm and Chevy Prizm of later years; only the name changed. All were Corolla variants built alongside Corollas at NUMMI in California. (The first two generations, Nova and Geo, offered a four-door hatch in addition to the standard sedan; the equivalent Corollas were available as wagons.)
skor: Ford still wins. The Mark LT is a more abhorrent rebadge, mostly because the Cimarron still had a unique hood, front fascia, etc.
johnsonc :
The 80’s Chevorlet Nova was a USDM version of the Japanese-Market Toyota Sprinter(The FWD AE82 Econobox, Not the RWD AE86 Sprinter Trueno) which in essence was an upmarket version of the JDM Corolla. While a shameless rebage, it is a good car. I still see many driving around.
The Nova barely even counts as a rebadge. When you opened the hood of mine, what did you see stamped on the block cover? TOYOTA, in big block letters.
It (along with the Prizm) was definitely the best compact GM ever sold, so it seems like a pretty good idea to me.
I used to own a Geo Prizm; it was a reliable, decent car. As a rebadge I think it made a lot of sense for GM.
I agree that the Lincoln Versailles should definitely be on this list. I also think it was a big mistake for Chrysler to put the New Yorker on an extended K-car platform in the early 80s. Both of these hurt brand reputations.
I think the most pointless rebadge may be the Dodge Raider (copy of Mitsu Montero). It put Dodge in a position to compete with Jeep, which was owned by the same corporation. It was actually pretty fun to drive and could hold it’s own offroad, but still a sales flop. And I don’t remember the Dodge Monaco (copy of the Eagle Premier) selling too well, either.
What about pretty much any Isuzu product from the last 10 years or so? All rebadged GM junk.
And what about Honda/Acura’s partnership with Isuzu? For the Acura SLX (nee Trooper) or the original Honda Odyssey (nee Oasis)?
100% agreed about the rebadged Dodge Dakota/Mitsubishi whatever they called it… absolutely pointless.
How about the VW Toureg/Audi Q7/Porsche Cayenne? Or while we’re on EU high-end stuff, the new Ferrari California and the Maserati GranSport?
Or the barely warmed-over Dodge Sprinter van (that can be turned back into a MBZ product on eBay very easily). This actually was a boon for ChryCo., so not such a bad badge-engineered idea.
But, as always, GM was always the worst offender.
Pontiac Vibe/Toyota Matrix?
TrailBlazer/Rainier/Bravada/9-7x/Envoy/Ascender?
Cavalier/Phoenix/Cimmaron/Skylark
Cobalt/G5/Ion (?)
Saab 9-5/Saturn L-Series
GMC truck/Chevy Truck (seriously, what’s the point?)
Saturn Outlook/Traverse/TransPort/Lumina APV
Just be glad that the Aztek was never re-badged as anything else. *shudder*